Which tank in BfA

Community General Discussion
1

Hello,

I find myself really enjoying tanking. Currently, I have done a few LFGs and low M+ only where I brought my Druid Guardian and Vengeance DH. Searching raider.io for high level M+ and Mythic BfA on EU servers, these two are the least represented tanks.
On their forums, people complain they are not considered for high levels dungeons and raids. I can somehow understand the reasons. The defensiveness of both classes is poor not saying tanking is impossible, of course etc.

I would like to invest time to level a good tank for high M+ and raid HC+ since Resto Druids are very good then I would already have a healer. I would like to ask for opinions, pros, cons of these classes: Warrior, DKs, and Paladins, perhaps Monk as well. I found that while DK are great tanks, they are not so good DPSers; Paladins are fairly weak when outside its CDs; then Warrior and Monk would be my narrowed list. What do you think.

Thanks.

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Prot warrior is godlike atm.
Blood DK is also okay.

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There is a Guardian tank that has done +23 this season, and there are Twitch streamers like NihiloTheBear that do show that you can do higher keys (18 and up) even if you are not running with super meta groups. It is true that bears are not FOTM right now and that they lack in various ways (defensives, damage), but they will likely get fixed at some points, and you can certainly do +15s as a bear just fine too, even now. It’s just not as easy as with a warrior, and the community perception is really poor also. So if you mostly plan to PUG, yeah, neither Guardian nor VDH are good picks right now, sadly.

The probably most sought after tank is protection warrior right now, in large part because of the obscene damage it does. It’s almost like having another dps in the group, especially when it comes to trash (and trash matters in M+). They also have their shout which is another benefit in the melee-heavy meta right now. From my current perspective as healer, I prefer paladin tanks, because they are very smooth to heal, with warriors being second. Not a fan of healing BDKs because they are spiky, but they are certainly the most popular tank at around +15. At higher keys, the top tank is warrior.

If damage is your biggest concern, warrior is what you should go for. I’m just not sure if jumping on the FOTM bandwagon leads to much satisfaction in the long term. Nerfs and buffs always lurk around the corner.

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Safe pick : DK
Current best: Prot warr
2nd safe pick: Paladin
Wildcard, usually underperforms: Druid
Okay I guess: Monk

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5

I’d still consider DK to be the best. Healing prots is still a bloody pain in the butt and I don’t find their damage to be that glorious. DK’s can rival with them just fine when it comes to that.

Paladins and monks seem to be equally good and would also come second after DK. They still outmatch guardians but I think these latter can pull their own with the right stats/traits.

DH tanks are a joke. Haven’t seen any for a while, and when I went back on mine I quit the same day. Honestly DH’s I love you… as dps, so please just keep eye beaming everything to the ground and do nothing but wreck havoc as of now. Ty.

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Prot warrior is still clunky but over buffed.

It also can be abit tricky at really high keys as you no longer have the freedom to just spam dps and have to actually manage rage and defensives.

It is currently very strong however, but I’m afraid blizzard will soon nerf it back inline with other tanks which might cause a catastrophe.

As for monks I don’t really know much about them, however they have some very cool utility stuff that can be gamed really hard if you like that kind of gameplay.

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Clunky? What kinda prot warrs do you guys get…?

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Thanks for the comments. Although still have dilemma between Paladin and DK, because I have both at level 85, I’ll have a go with DK. I was always more into dark rather than light magic :slight_smile:

I would probably choose Warrior, even though it is a clear FOTM and it’s very strong, I don’t want to start it from scratch and prefer to use Boost on something else.

Thanks.

9

Play what feels right for you.

Have a go with your paladin, tank a dungeon or 3 and do the same for your death knight. See which one feels right, but for the love of all that’s holy, do not boost. Learn the classes from their current levels.

3 Likes
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I play Prot War & Prot Paladin primarily, though haven’t been a key pusher since Legion so I can only talk from a relatively casual perspective right now.

Prot Warrior is in a solid place, which is good considering the amount of initial BFA time spent being crippled by the GCD-IPain issue before. No doubt it’ll be down-tweaked eventually. They always had solid AoE DPS, so as long as their defensive capabilities remain decent and their DPS doesn’t get absolutely hammered by tweaks then they’ll be a pretty safe pick for a quite a while. Even PvP is pretty bearable now, whereas I don’t even want to begin to express how upsetting it was to be Prot Warrior when BFA initially released. PvE stung and PvP was utterly pointless, which sucked like hell given how strong they were in Legion for both content types.

Prot Paladin back then was infinitely superior when Warrior was having its issues. Still a very safe choice right now given they are sustain-tanks with an absolute wealth of utility and even some cheesy strategies, without lacking in defensive capabilities. Their main issue is having arguably some of the weakest DPS of the bunch, which isn’t a huge concern for a tank but it certainly can be when looking to push as far as possible. Unlike Warriors, their AoE is passive and not really capable of huge burst potential like Warrior AvaThunDemo spam.

Haven’t played any of the other tanks, but as a Healer I can tell you that I loathe healing Tank DH’s and Brewmasters. Deathknight’s aren’t half as bad, and both they (and Warriors) can visually display their absorbs to make healing a bit more streamlined, whereas the other two (DH/MNK) will often spike all over the place and keep you pressured. Paladin having its own healing and preferring to use it at around 50% means you essentially have 1.5 healers, hence the safety.

Ultimately, just pick whichever appeals to you. By the time you level up and get to a point where min-maxing is worth consideration, all of this may have changed once again via another patch.

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thanks again for your comments. No, I don’t want to use boost.

I am planning to level Zandalari Troll for their heritage armor. They just look awesome. This is probably the best allied race Blizzard created. KT is a joke IMO. Maybe that would be idea to get a Warrior. I have read all posts which is enough to think about decision :slight_smile:. Cheers guys!

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Warrior is only top tier tank for m+ atm. IT has highest success ratio coupled with being most popular in high keys, so figure. If you want easy spot in pugs and overall best tank toolkit available it’s your only choice.
However all tanks are viable, but the higher you go, the smaller chance to get invited to pug group for nonwarrior tank.

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I like Prot warrior … at 8.0 warrior was the worst tank …now it’s really nice to tank with him…

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Anything you want. Every tanks done a 20 key in time, which lets face it, you won’t be doing. I don’t mean that harsh, just a very small fraction of players do those keys.

It only really matter for 20+ what you pick. Everyone says guardians the worse blah blah. Our tank we do 15 keys with is an absolute beast. Usually slightly below dps, thanks to stacking twisted claw (I think that’s what it’s called).

I’ve tanked up to 15 keys on my DH. Its not easy, but a very fun tank class to play.

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Depends on how hard you’re planning to push but unless you’re aiming 15+s then pick what fits your playstyle the best.

Warrios is currently FOTM but most likely will get nerfed in next patches. its what you could imagine a warrior being - at least from my understanding - really good versus physical damage, arguably highest damage. I’d rate it medium in terms of difficulty

DK is probably second best - mainly depends on selfheals and on spot heals (so monk healer fits him well) but in necrotic weeks you’ll feel it being an issue. damage seems to be alright, you get grips/mass grips which is helpful and if you manage your defensives well you shouldnt suffer in M+ or HC raids, more problematic in Mythic raids since after u’re out of defensives you depend on externals a lot, same goes for M+ if your defensives are down. its pretty hard to play tho, regardless of what people say. your defensive management and timing your spells well etc. is a key to being good. could add some more but you get the point. i’d rate DK hard

Monk is typical, hit and run playstyle, not sure about details but its more flexible and requires more kiting at least from what I saw, since i never really played it. I’d rate it probably hard, since it requires a lot of movement and good management of adds.

DH used to be highest/second highest damage but havent seen one for a looong time, not sure how they work either but I know they’re pretty weak right now. so I guess skip on this, cant really rate them but in the past they were pretty easy to play.

Druid tank - is probably the tankies versus physical damage but really weak versus magic damage, so say, on tyranical waycrest manor you can easly tank goliath boss without reseting its stacks but in motherlode, you get melted on bosses damage wise. I’d rate it easy regardless simply because of how beefy he is.

and pally tank is probably most reliable one, pretty easy to play, A LOT of survivabilty and goes well with priests, you got good amount of CC, and you’re reaaaally beefy. you just stand there and tank pretty much, rarely saw pallys even bothering to kite so ill rate it easy as well.

personally, I play DK, and once you understand spec well, its a lot of fun so I’d recommend it for sure. its pretty reliable as well, unless blizzard keeps nerfing them. you got good tools in kit, combat ress, grips, and decent damage, and with correct play you can pull half the dungeon and stay alive for 15-20 seconds.

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17

Thanks for the list and thanks for explanation on DK.

I’ve already had a go with a Warrior. It’s at low level (40 at the time of writing it) and levelling it has been very easy so far. I agree Prot spec is not hard with rather straight forward abilities to use. The only issue I spotted is add positioning and building range, especially rage. But I am sure it is me doing anything wrong, e.g. not using abilities in the right time on CD or not using correct combination of them, etc.

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Warrior is really good atm. But Monk and dk is a also a safe pick. Paladins too I guess.

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yeah rage management is important with warrior but regardless I feel like its pretty easy class/spec - it’s always been arguably easiest spec imo. not really fun for me, and for anyone else unless they’re into easy gameplay

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I’ve heard that having a prot warrior is almost like having a 4th dps, which is what makes them so good now. Prot warrior is pretty easy to play, so is Blood DK by the way, I have been leveling some of my characters during the free weekend for when I want to use them.
the things I find fun with prot warrior is the movement, being able to leap around. DK is rather slow if you compare them, but both are really good and quite easy to use.

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There’s nothing wrong with boosting. Read a guide, build up quickbars, install WAs and practise.
No need to waste ~50h played in nonsense-content.

1 Like